


The Chemicals Between Us

by wordsliketeeth



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Bad Boy Haizaki, Bloody Knuckles, Bruises, Caring Momoi is Caring, Come Marking, Daddy Kink, Developing Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Friends With Benefits, Internal Conflict, Opposites Attract, Outspoken Momoi, Poor Life Choices, Quiet Sex, Rough Sex, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-15 06:55:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18068696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordsliketeeth/pseuds/wordsliketeeth
Summary: "Haizaki furrows his brow and sucks the bottom line of his mouth between the slightly jagged edges of his teeth as he ruminates over the possible reasons for choosing the pink-haired girl as his confidant. They're not close, not really. They've messed around a few times, had their fun, but at the end of the day, they're just two people living lives so different from one another that Haizaki can't even see the idea of her from the end of his street." Haizaki goes to see Momoi after a bad night at home and finds himself in deeper water than he started in.





	The Chemicals Between Us

Haizaki doesn't feel the cold winter air that cuts through his skin and turns the breath in his lungs to January ice, nor does he feel the wind that would turn to frost on the bareness of his arms and face if his core temperature would allow it. He doesn't remember to grab his coat, doesn't think at all honestly, not about the frore or the damp or the probability of him catching a cold. None of it holds any meaning; it matters not one whit against the rage and the hatred pooling in his veins, doesn't hold a candle to the rising heat in his blood or the violence that knots in the low of his belly, beckoning for a physical response. He doesn't think and he doesn't remember, he only gnashes away at the animosity and the bitterness that's been recently fed to him.

Which is exactly why he's as equally as surprised as Momoi is when she opens her front door and greets him with a consolation smile. He doesn't recall walking to her house, and in fact, he hadn't realized that he'd even known the way before now. He furrows his brow and sucks the bottom line of his mouth between the slightly jagged edges of his teeth as he ruminates over the possible reasons for choosing the pink-haired girl as his confidant. They're not close, not really. They've messed around a few times, had their fun, but at the end of the day, they're just two people living lives so different from one another that Haizaki can't even see the _idea_ of her from the end of his street.

“You're bleeding,” Momoi says, reaching out to touch Haizaki's hand with more delicacy than he's familiar with. “How long were you knocking, exactly?”

Haizaki lifts his shoulders in the barest of shrugs and runs a cold hand down the back of his neck.

“And why aren't you wearing a jacket?” Momoi chastises, her tone equal parts critical and caring.

“I guess I didn't realize how hard I was knocking. As for the outerwear, I don't get cold easily,” Haizaki answers, his voice as sharp as the air is thick.

“I see that in the way your lips are turning blue and you're shivering,” Momoi responds, rolling her eyes. “Come inside.” She steps away from the door and needlessly gestures for him to enter her family's home. “I'll make you some tea.”

“Tea? What do I look like to you?” Haizaki knits his brows together in an expression of disgust and lifts the corner of his mouth into a sneer. “I'm not some kind of pansy.”

Momoi stares at him blankly for a long moment, clearly unimpressed. “It's _tea_ , Shōgo. I don't think it bears any connotation that it's some kind of far-reaching identifier. It's a beverage. Now quit trying to be macho or whatever it is you're doing and take a seat in the living room. There are blankets on the couch. Go warm yourself up.” With that being said, Momoi turns on her heel and flounces into the kitchen with an air of confidence Haizaki either envies or despises, he can't be entirely sure.

He makes his way into the aforementioned room and flops down on a plush sofa. He glances around the room with a sense of casual indifference, absentmindedly tugging a blanket around his shoulders and into his lap. He waits for Momoi to return, and for a moment, he thinks she has but the shuffle of footsteps on the polished floorboards are too heavy to indicate her re-entry.

“I suppose you've come here to harass Satsuki with another one of your self-inflicted problems.” The man's timbre is low and calculated, and each word that passes over the tight press of his lips is crisp on articulation. It sounds as insulting as it feels and Haizaki has to clench his fists to quiet his instinctual need to start a fight. He smooths moisture over his lips before biting down on the inside of his cheek, trying to formulate a congenial response.

“Dad, it's okay,” Momoi chimes in, leaning over to place the steaming mug of tea on a marble-topped coffee table. She tucks a section of hair behind her ear and smiles up at her father winningly. “I invited him over. He has a test coming up and I offered to help him study.”

Haizaki bites back a wave of laughter and makes to reach for the mug before he remembers his bloodied knuckles. He drops his hands into his lap and attempts a smile at the man whose shadow is swallowing him whole, though, he knows it's likely a grimace for all the contempt he feels for him. The eyes that meet his own are cold and dark and Haizaki's suddenly reminded of the thugs and the drug dealers that occupy his street. He glances around the room, his eyes roving over pristine walls and expensive furniture, brights lights and grime-free floors. It's not a place befitting of him and he's stricken with the sudden impulse to run for the front door and back out into the cold night.

Haizaki tunes out Momoi's conversation with her father and remembers the last time he set foot in her home. He had met her mother then and, to his surprise, she was nothing like her husband. She was kind and accepting and the only thing she wanted to talk about was how proud she was of her 'beautiful and successful' daughter. She didn't stare at the holes in Haizaki's jeans or the glint of silver in his ears. She didn't comment on his unkempt hair or the state of his spit-shined combat boots. It was a foreign concept to Haizaki, an approach that made him feel accepted as much as it made him feel ill at ease, but it was refreshing, nonetheless.

Still, the point stands that Haizaki doesn't have a place in her picture-perfect home with her superlative parents and unblemished timeline. The cracks in his history are too deep and too dark to allow space for something so pure and faultless. It makes him feel worthless and the only thing that drives away his sorrow is rage, so he digs up today's earlier events and lets their tarnished memory turn to black beneath his skin.

“Hey, I asked you a question,” Momoi says, softly. She sits down on the arm of the couch and tilts her head to look at Haizaki inquisitively. “What happened earlier? Why did you choose to come to me?”

“I didn't choose you,” Haizaki spits reflexively.

“You came to my house,” Momoi counters, speaking slower than strictly necessary. “I didn't mean to suggest that you came here with the intention of asking for my hand in marriage.”

Haizaki exhales a winded sigh and looks up toward the ceiling, the tension in his neck and shoulders pulling tight. “I know.”

“You're not going to tell me, are you?” Momoi asks, her voice soft and laced with sympathy Haizaki doesn't want to admit he needs.

“No,” Haizaki answers simply. Then, after a moment of silence, he adds: “It's not something I want to talk about.”

Momoi nods and brushes the fall of her hair over the delicate curve her shoulder. “Fine. Then I guess it's time we start studying, don't you think?”

Haizaki furrows his brow and looks at Momoi as if she's just asked him to scrub all of the toilets in her home. She laughs at his expression and though he can't see it for himself, he can see the light in her eyes, and something about its reflection spreads to warm throughout his veins. “I didn't come here to–”

“Sure you did,” Momoi interjects. “That's exactly why you came here.”

Haizaki weighs his options but it doesn't take much consideration before he decides that pretending to study for an hour or two is a much better prospect than going back home. So he finds comfort on the sizable sofa and settles in for the lesser of two evils, and though he's loathe to admit it, he even enjoys the warmth and the spice of the tea Momoi made for him.

After one hour turns into two and two turns into three, Momoi finally stops lecturing him on subjects that he doesn't care to know a damn thing about. However, he finds eerie disquiet in the fact that she just so happens to know what subjects he's currently taking.

“I'm going to go talk to my parents. I'll be back in a minute. There's food in the kitchen if you're hungry.” Momoi pushes herself into standing and smiles at Haizaki in a way that strikes a chord somewhere deep within his chest. He ignores the feeling and shoves it down with the rest of the emotion he doesn't want to confess exists. He nods once but Momoi's already rounding the corner and disappearing out of sight.

Haizaki makes his way into the kitchen and snorts derision at the size of it, knowing that he could easily fit two of the rooms in his home into its ample space. He shakes his head and tries to swallow the bitter taste that collects in the back of his throat as he makes his way over to the fridge. He opens the door and stares in at its contents before hastily deciding on a can of soda and forgoing the entire mission for a bag of chips on the counter.

“That's nutritious,” Momoi notes, offering Haizaki a lopsided smile.

“I got overwhelmed.” He works a short nail under the soda's tab and cracks it open, slurping up the foamy syrup that rises to the top. “We have some beer, rotisserie chicken, and expired condiments in our fridge. You have half the fucking grocery store in yours. It makes deciding what to eat a bit more of a task.”

Momoi's smile disappears from her face and Haizaki is afraid that she's going to offer up some kind of speech that pities his position but she says nothing and he's happy for it.

“I got my parents to agree to let you spend the night under the condition that you sleep on the couch. I'll make you up a bed, if you want it, that is.” Momoi looks at Haizaki's injured hand and frowns. “I know that my opinion doesn't mean much to you but I think you should consider it given your current state. I don't know what happened tonight but it's pretty evident that you need some time to digress.”

“I don't know,” Haizaki answers, licking sticky-sweet from his lips.

Momoi steps forward and reaches out to take Haizaki's hand in her own. “I really think you should,” she lilts, smiling. She presses her lips to the torn flesh over his knuckles and the dried red that stains his skin, her eyes never leaving his face. She lets the kiss linger for a moment but the intimate touch is gone before Haizaki can think to draw his hand away from her pale pink lips.

“Why?” he asks, something breaking in the dark of his throat.

“Well, if my calculations are correct” –Momoi brings herself closer to Haizaki to whisper in his ear– “in approximately one hour you'll be creeping upstairs and into my bedroom. My door will be open and I'll be wearing nothing but a pair of knee-high socks.” She presses the flat of her hand against his chest and tilts her head back just enough to look up and into Haizaki's heat-glazed stare. “If I'm right, you aren't wearing anything under those ripped-up jeans of yours so getting into my bed should be a breeze.”

Haizaki arches an eyebrow and his lips are bending into a crooked grin before he can still the motion. “Is that so?”

Momoi shrugs and paints an expression of innocence over her feminine features. “I don't know, Shōgo. You tell me.” She smiles then, something mischievous and enticing swamping the bright pink of her irises. “I'll go make up that bed then,” she tells him, raking her nails gently down over the rumpled lines of his shirt.

“You do that,” Haizaki says after her, forgetting about the chips and the soda in favor of watching her walk away.

The couch is comfortable enough and the chill blanketing Haizaki's bones has finally thawed but the silence spreading out across the living room is deafening. It's nothing like the turbulence he's used to and it makes his skin crawl with a feeling of unease. He rolls over and onto his side for what feels like the umpteenth time and stares at the burning red of the digital numbers written across the clock atop the mantle. He waits until his blood grows thick with desire and his limbs are tingling with the need to move, and at last, the numbers on the clock turn over into a time that spells permission.

Haizaki untangles himself from the blankets he's wrapped in and quietly tracks the same path Momoi took earlier until he's stationed right outside her bedroom door. There's a crack of light spilling out and into the hall and part of Haizaki feels like he belongs with the shadows but it holds no meaning when he pushes the weight of the door into entrance and steps inside the girlish space.

Momoi sits up and balances her weight on the bend of her elbows, her hair spilling out over the moonlit pale of her bare skin like candy floss and strawberry milk. She greets him with a honeyed smile and it almost pains him to turn away from her in order to close the door behind him.

He shucks his clothes quickly and makes his way over to her bed with equal haste. He can see, even in the dark, that the room is fit for a princess despite a far corner that's littered with sports material, but Haizaki can't help but think it suits her. However, the thought is fleeting because Momoi is wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him flush against the heat of her body.

Her lips are as soft as he remembers them but the lines of her body feel different, as if she's grown into them more. Her skin is smooth and her frame curves in all the right places, and the smell that clings to her makes Haizaki feel like he doesn't have any right to touch her. Nevertheless, he touches her like he's mapping out her body and kisses her like there's freedom in the dark beyond her lips.

Momoi's affection is like fine wine, rich and bold and full-bodied. She moves with the grace of a feline and carries with her the assurance of a seasoned woman in spite of the inexperience she feels. She's everything Haizaki doesn't know he needs and everything he knows he shouldn't have. It makes him want her like a desert man thirsts for rain, it makes him want to bruise her in places he has no right touching, but when he presses his fingers in against her hips to do just that, she issues no protest. It imbues him with a feeling he can't name, a power he can't justify. So he falls back on what he knows and fucks into her roughly, his hands bracing hard against her hips and his teeth catching at the bottom line of her mouth. He fucks her hard and he fucks her fast but Momoi's not as pristine as the walls of her home or as polished as the floors of the foyer. She's desperate and wanting and when Haizaki drives himself home, she tangles her hands in his hair to guide the cool edges of his teeth to the pulse thrumming along the smooth column of her throat.

Haizaki spills himself to completion at the thought of marking Momoi's body but he doesn't start shuddering with the electric heat of over-stimulation until she whimpers something that sounds like _daddy_ against his shoulder. The title isn't something he associates with being good, especially now, but hearing the epithet spill past Momoi's lips is as sweet as molasses and as addictive as sesame syrup.

“Say that again,” he commands, slightly breathless. He slips a hand between her thighs when he abandons the tight heat of her entrance and presses two fingers against her pulsing clit.

Momoi opens her eyes and blinks Haizaki into focus, the long lines of her lashes like dancing shadows on the contour of her cheekbones. “Daddy?” she asks, almost adolescent for the question's virtue.

Haizaki groans pleasure and bucks his hips forward and into the air, the wet stain of his capitulation cool on his skin. “Yeah, that,” he breathes, working his fingers faster.

Momoi gasps and presses her head back against the fluffy weight of her pillow, her mouth parted for air and her eyes squeezed shut. Her breasts rise and fall with each hurried breath and Haizaki can see her nipples pulling taut in the light of the moon. His cock jerks with renewed interest and he feels a bead of moisture spill down the softening gravity of his shaft. He pins his focus on the thrum and the heat of Momoi's clit and the rhythm of his ministrations but it takes more than mere concentration to keep himself quiet, a task essential to keeping their tryst under wraps.

“Oh...right there...” Momoi whispers, her voice straining high and desperate. “I'm so close, _Daddy_.”

Haizaki growls something that reverberates low in his chest and slips two fingers into Momoi's slick heat. Her back comes away from the bed and Haizaki uses his own come to aid in the friction of manipulation when he returns his fingers to the bruising shade of her clit, swollen and sensitive. The slide comes easy and only seconds pass before Haizaki has to clamp a hand over Momoi's mouth to silence the scream that breaks apart in her throat. She breathes hard against the sweat-damp of his palm and when she finally opens her eyes, Haizaki can see the sated weight of pleasure in the blown-dark of her gaze.

“Shit,” he says, his voice barely scratching above a whisper. “That was something else.”

Haizaki can feel Momoi smile against his hand and he mindlessly returns the gesture before she flicks her tongue out against the lines drawn across his palm. “Can I trust you to be quiet now?” he asks her, teasingly.

Momoi nods slowly as though the motion of her physical assent is too much to bear with speed. Haizaki draws back his hand and pins Momoi under the density of a warning glance that makes her giggle faintly; and despite the low tones of it, the sound is like something sacred to Haizaki's ears and he hopes that it won't be the last time he hears it.

“You know, you're not always very nice, Shōgo, but you are good in bed,” Momoi tells him, her eyes pinned to his frame while he takes up the empty space at her side.

“Of course I am,” Haizaki responds, the silver of his hair catching in the light. “You shouldn't be surprised. It's not like this is our first time.”

Momoi exhales a puff of breath and turns her head to look at Haizaki directly. “Do you have to make everything into an argument or dispute? You're so defensive all the time.”

Haizaki narrows his eyes but before he can frame his lips around the words that collide with the damp of his teeth, Momoi presses her fingers against his mouth. “I'm not putting you down. You should learn how to take a compliment.”

Haizaki mulls over the comment for a moment and wonders if what she's said is true. He knows that he spends most of his time up in arms, quick to attack, but he's never really taken the time to assess the situation. He loses himself to his own thoughts and the soft drag of Momoi's fingertips, now walking up the narrow jut of his hipbone. A long moment of silence stretches between them and Haizaki speculates that she's fallen asleep but something keeps him from holding the reticence. “My dad showed up at my house tonight after years of being absent from our lives, me and my brother. He wants an heir or some shit to take his place in the Yakuza, so he's been looking for us and it's not exactly hard to find two notorious bad boys in the underbelly of Shizuoko.”

Momoi looks like she wants to say something sarcastic or witty to break the tension but decides otherwise. “I'm sorry. I had no idea. I mean, I assumed that your father didn't exactly play a role in your life but I didn't know that he had abandoned you.” She lifts a hand to the strain collecting in Haizaki's jaw and drags the pad of her thumb across his lips. “For what it's worth, I think you've been doing just fine without him.”

Haizaki laughs and the sound is too loud considering the consequences that should arise if they're caught. “Fine? I live in a decrepit housing unit surrounded by prostitutes and drug addicts. I'm failing my classes, I've been suspended twice, arrested once—yeah, I'm the kind of guy you want to take home to meet your parents.”

“I let you meet my parents, didn't I? I'm not ashamed of you, Shōgo. I just wish you had a little more confidence and not just misplaced arrogance.” Momoi slips a finger into his mouth and Haizaki bites down on the give of her flesh, hard enough to feel but not to hurt. “I don't approve of everything you do by any means, and sometimes I think you're needlessly cruel but I think there's more to you than what you let people see.”

Haizaki curls his fingers around Momoi's own and brings her wrist to his lips to plant a trail of kisses up her forearm. “Is this supposed to be some kind of fairy tale where you save me—where I magically stumble upon your front door and you welcome me into your castle with open arms and offer me some kind of redemption?”

“I don't believe in fairy tales and I don't need to save you. If you want to be redeemed that's a path you're going to have to walk on your own.” Momoi tugs her wrist away from Haizaki's lips and pulls herself up and into sitting. “I don't need to change you to like you. You just have to learn how to like yourself.” Momoi slides off the edge of her bed and fixes the rolled edge of the tall sock nestled behind the bend of her knee. “I'm going to go take a bath now. I suggest you clean up in the washroom downstairs to ease suspicion.” She makes her way over to her door where she tugs a robe down from a heart-shaped hook on the back of the white wood. “I'll see you in the morning, Shōgo. At least, I hope to.” She turns around and offers him a warm smile over her shoulder before traipsing out of the room discreetly.

Haizaki stares after her even when she's long gone and there's nothing left in her presence but the shadow of doubt. He worries his bottom lip between his teeth and runs his fingers over the raised edges of his knuckles involuntarily. He doesn't want to believe that there's truth in Momoi's words but deep down, in some nebulous void buried within his heart, he knows that she's right.

He just doesn't know how to accept the fact that he's starting to like her.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
